how to display version only of curl

Question

When curl --version is executed on the command line of a VM running Ubuntu 18.04 this is displayed in the terminal:

curl 7.58.0 (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) libcurl/7.58.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1 zlib/1.2.11 libidn2/2.0.4 libpsl/0.19.1 (+libidn2/2.0.4) nghttp2/1.30.0 librtmp/2.3
Release-Date: 2018-01-24
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher http https imap imaps ldap ldaps pop3 pop3s rtmp rtsp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp 
Features: AsynchDNS IDN IPv6 Largefile GSS-API Kerberos SPNEGO NTLM NTLM_WB SSL libz TLS-SRP HTTP2 UnixSockets HTTPS-proxy PSL

How do I change the command so that only 7.58.0 is displayed?

Posting terminal information as images makes it difficult for responders to use part of the output in their answers or in requests for clarification. Instead, copy and paste the relevant output here using this site's [markdown formatting](https://askubuntu.com/editing-help — DK Bose, Dec 03 '19 at 14:39

Liso · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-03T14:54:38.903

4

With a little modification.

:~$ curl --version | head -n 1 | awk '{ print $2 }'
7.58.0

head -n 1 tells shell to print the first line of output.

awk '{ print $2 }' will print the second column.

You can also tell awk to print the second column of the first line, using NR built-in variable.

:~$ curl --version | awk 'NR==1{print $2}'
7.58.0

NR==1 tells awk to print the first line of the output.

{ print $2 } will print the second column.

edited Dec 03 '19 at 14:54

answered Dec 03 '19 at 14:38

Liso

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@JusticeforMonica Thanks, I was about to edit the post. – Liso Dec 03 '19 at 14:42
In the first part of the answer, the explanation of what each piece does is quite helpful. Can an explanation be added to the second part to describe what NR==1 does? – knot22 Dec 03 '19 at 14:48
@knot22 Edited. – Liso Dec 03 '19 at 15:01

how to display version only of curl

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